The Operator: Firing the Shots That Killed Osama Bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior

Stirringly evocative, thought provoking, and often jaw dropping, The Operator ranges across SEAL Team Operator Robert O'Neill's awe-inspiring 400-mission career that included his involvement in attempts to rescue "Lone Survivor" Marcus Luttrell and abducted-by-Somali-pirates Captain Richard Phillips and culminated in those famous three shots that dispatched the world's most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden.

Lions of Kandahar: The Story of a Fight Against All Odds

Southern Afghanistan was slipping away. That was clear to then-Captain Rusty Bradley as he began his third tour of duty there in 2006. The Taliban and their allies were infiltrating everywhere, poised to reclaim Kandahar Province, their strategically vital onetime capital. To stop them, the NATO coalition launched Operation Medusa, the largest offensive in its history. The battlefield was the Panjwayi Valley, a densely packed warren of walled compounds that doubled neatly as enemy bunkers.

Gray Work: Confessions of an American Paramilitary Spy

In this unprecedented audiobook, a paramilitary contractor with more than two decades of experience gives us a firsthand look into the secret lives of America's private warriors and their highly covert work around the world. Author Jamie Smith has planned and executed hundreds of missions on behalf of government agencies and private industry in some of the world's most dangerous hot spots - and lived to tell the tale.

13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi

13 Hours presents, for the first time ever, the true account of the events of September 11, 2012, when terrorists attacked the US State Department Special Mission Compound and a nearby CIA station called the Annex in Benghazi, Libya. A team of six American security operators fought to repel the attackers and protect the Americans stationed there. Those men went beyond the call of duty, performing extraordinary acts of courage and heroism, to avert tragedy on a much larger scale.

Red Platoon: A True Story of American Valour

On October 3, 2009, after years of constant smaller attacks, the Taliban finally decided to throw everything they had at Keating. The ensuing 13-hour battle - and eventual victory - cost eight men their lives. Red Platoon is the riveting firsthand account of the Battle of Keating, told by Romesha, who spearheaded both the defence of the outpost and the counterattack that drove the Taliban back beyond the wire and received the Medal of Honor for his actions.

The Reaper: Autobiography of One of the Deadliest Special Ops Snipers

In the best-selling tradition of American Sniper and Shooter, Irving shares the true story of his extraordinary career, including his deployment to Afghanistan in the summer of 2009, when he set another record, this time for enemy kills on a single deployment. His teammates and chain of command labeled him "The Reaper," and his actions on the battlefield became the stuff of legend, culminating in an extraordinary face-off against an enemy sniper known simply as The Chechnian.

Hammerhead Six: How Green Berets Waged an Unconventional War Against the Taliban to Win in Afghanistan's Deadly Pech Valley

In 2003, the Special Forces soldiers entered an area later called "the most dangerous place in Afghanistan". Here, where the line between civilians and armed zealots was indistinct, they illustrated the Afghan proverb "I destroy my enemy by making him my friend." Fry recounts how they were seen as welcome guests rather than invaders. Soon after their deployment ended, the Pech Valley reverted to turmoil. Their success was never replicated.

Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown

When Navy SEAL Adam Brown woke up on March 17, 2010, he didn't know he would die that night in the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan - but he was ready: In a letter to his children, not meant to be seen unless the worst happened, he wrote, "I'm not afraid of anything that might happen to me on this earth, because I know no matter what, nothing can take my spirit from me."

Agent Storm: My Life Inside al-Qaeda

He was the Western convert who would plunge deep inside al-Qaeda. He named his first son Osama after 9/11 and became a Jihadist. But then - after a sudden loss of faith - Morten Storm made a life-changing decision. He became a double agent and joined the CIA, MI6 and MI5. Filled with hair-raising close calls and deception, Storm's story builds to the climactic finale when he must betray his friend and mentor al-Awlaki - al-Qaeda's biggest threat to the West.

House to House: An Epic Memoir of War

In one of the most compelling combat narratives ever written, Staff Sergeant David Bellavia, an Army infantry platoon leader in Iraq, gives a teeth-rattling, first-hand account of 11 straight days of heavy house-to-house fighting during the climactic second battle of Fallujah. His actions in the firefight, which included killing five insurgents in hand-to-hand combat, earned Bellavia the Bronze Star, the Silver Star, and New York state's highest military honor, the Conspicuous Service Cross.

The Only Thing Worth Dying For: How Eleven Green Berets Forged a New Afghanistan

The Only Thing Worth Dying For chronicles the most important mission in the early days of the Global War on Terror, when the men on the ground knew little about the enemy - and their commanders in Washington knew even less. With unprecedented access to surviving members of ODA 574, key war planners, and Karzai himself, award-winning author Eric Blehm cuts through the noise of politicians and high-level military officials to narrate, for the first time, a story of uncommon bravery and terrible sacrifice.

Operation Relentless: The Hunt for the Richest, Deadliest Criminal in History

The new best seller from the author of Zero Six Bravo. By 2007 Viktor Bout had become the world's foremost arms dealer. Known as the Merchant of Death, he was both public enemy number one to the global intelligence agencies and a ruthless criminal worth around $6 billion. For years Bout had eluded capture, meanwhile building up a labyrinthine network of airlines selling weapons to order to dictators, rebels, despots and terror groups worldwide.

Bandit Country: SAS Operation

South Armagh, 1989: cheering mobs stand over the body of a British soldier. He is the ninth to have been killed by the so-called Border Fox, an IRA sniper whose activities have helped make this area of the United Kingdom the most feared killing ground in Western Europe. The British government is determined to break the tightly knit South Armagh Brigade of the IRA before more lives are lost.

Trident: The Forging and Reforging of a Navy SEAL Leader

Decorated Navy SEAL Lieutenant Jason Redman served his country courageously and with distinction in Columbia, Peru, Afghanistan, and Iraq, where he commanded mobility and assault forces. But his journey was not without its supreme challenges. He was critically wounded in 2007 when he was struck by machine-gun fire at point blank range. During his intense recovery period Redman posted a sign on his door, warning all who entered not to "feel sorry for [his] wounds."

Gurkha: Better to Die than Live a Coward: My Life in the Gurkhas

In the summer of 2006, Colour-Sargeant Kailash Limbu's platoon was sent to relieve and occupy a police compound in the town of Now Zad in Helmand. He was told to prepare for a 48-hour operation. In the end he and his men were under siege for 31 days - one of the longest such sieges in the whole of the Afghan campaign.

We Were Warriors: One Soldier's Story of Brutal Combat

A captain in 29 Commando, Johnny Mercer served in the army for 12 years. On his third tour of Afghanistan, he was a joint fires controller, with the pressurized job of bringing down artillery and air strikes in close proximity to his own troops. Based in an area of Northern Helmand that was riddled with Taliban leaders, he walked into danger with every patrol, determined to protect them. Then, one morning, in brutal close-quarter combat, everything changed....

sfak107 says:"A hugely compelling story written by a soldier's soldiers."

Legend: A Harrowing Story from the Vietnam War of One Green Beret's Heroic Mission to Rescue a Special Forces Team Caught Behind Enemy Lines

In Legend, acclaimed best-selling author Eric Blehm takes as his canvas the Vietnam War as seen through a single mission that occurred on May 2, 1968. A 12-man Special Forces team had been covertly inserted into a small clearing in the jungles of neutral Cambodia - where US forces were forbidden to operate. Their objective, just miles over the Vietnam border, was to collect evidence that proved the North Vietnamese Army was using the Cambodian sanctuary as a major conduit for supplying troops and materiel to the south via the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

No Hero: The Evolution of a Navy SEAL

The second book by former Navy SEAL Mark Owen, following his multimillion-copy classic about the bin Laden mission No Easy Day, in which he tells the stories from his career that were most personal to him and that made him the operator and the person he is today.

Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, Updated Edition: (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs)

Singer provides the first account of the military services industry and its broader implications. Corporate Warriors includes a description of how the business works, as well as portraits of each of the basic types of companies: military providers that offer troops for tactical operations; military consultants that supply expert advice and training; and military support companies that sell logistics, intelligence, and engineering.

Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan

At 24 years of age, U.S. Army Ranger Sean Parnell was named commander of a forty-man elite infantry platoon - a unit that came to be known as the Outlaws - and was tasked with rooting out Pakistan-based insurgents from a mountain valley along Afghanistan's eastern frontier. Parnell and his men assumed they would be facing a ragtag bunch of civilians, but in May 2006 what started out as a routine patrol through the lower mountains of the Hindu Kush became a brutal ambush.

Cry Havoc

On March 7, 2004, former SAS soldier and mercenary Simon Mann prepared to take off from Harare International Airport. His destination was Equatorial Guinea; his intention was to remove one of the most brutal dictators in Africa in a privately organized coup d'état. The plot had the tacit approval of Western intelligence agencies, and Mann had already planned, overseen, and won two wars in Angola and Sierra Leone. So why did it go so wrong?

The unforgiving Afghan winter settled upon the 22 men of Marine Special Operations Team 8222, call sign Dagger 22, in the remote and hostile river valley of Bala Murghab, Afghanistan. The Taliban fighters in the region would have liked nothing more than to once again go dormant and rest until the new spring fighting season began. No chance of that - this winter would be different.

Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service

In Mossad, authors MichaelBar-Zohar and Nissim Mishal take us behind the closed curtain with riveting, eye-opening, boots-on-the-ground accounts of the most dangerous, most crucial missions in the agency's 60-year history.

The Longest Kill: The Story of Maverick 41, One of the World's Greatest Snipers

It takes a tough mind-set to be a successful sniper, to be able to dig in for days on your own as you wait for your target, to stay calm on a battlefield when you yourself have become the target the enemy most wants to take out. Craig Harrison has what it takes, and in November 2009 in Afghanistan, under intense pressure, he saved the lives of his comrades with the longest confirmed sniper kill - 2,475 metres, the length of 25 football pitches.

Publisher's Summary

As a commander of Delta Force - the most elite counter terrorist organization in the world - Pete Blaber took part in some of the most dangerous, controversial, and significant military and political events of our time. Now he takes his intimate knowledge of warfare - and the heart, mind, and spirit it takes to win - and moves his focus from the combat zone to civilian life.

As the smoke clears from exciting stories about never-before-revealed top-secret missions that were executed all over the globe, listeners will emerge wiser, more capable, and more ready for life's personal victories than they ever thought possible.

This is more than a gripping read about special forces and there exploits, it's also a demonstration of how interference by senior management who are egotistical can cause serious cocky ps to escalate, in this case leading to a tragic loss of life. A fantastically well written and read story.

I will definitely listen again. The depth and breadth of everyday practical applications from each of his stories and missions was very captivating. Every mission he talked about, including the planning aspects, had advice that you can apply in your day-to day life. The overarching theme was to consider how your decisions will affect: 1st - Your Mission, 2nd - Your Men, and 3rd - Me. <br/><br/>He also went into some of the concepts that helped him to understand what he needed to do to become a better operator and leader. "The mind has three elementary phases it goes through when it's thinking: saturate, incubate, and illuminate. although they generally occur in order, all three are continuous processes, so your mind is constantly cycling through all three phases.The most effective approach to a situation is to detect our mind's ability to recognize the life patterns that happen" How you handle and solve problems when you encounter them, will ultimately decide the outcome. Throughout the book, he explains his adventure and ends with a life lesson so we can understand, adapt, and master the future.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Peter Blaber

What about Joe Barrett’s performance did you like?

He did not overdo it when it came to trying to portray the accents of the enemies. The tone and performance was just right.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

Chris

Nor Cal

01/03/14

Overall

Performance

Story

"Spot On"

Any additional comments?

If you're looking for a story book collection of battles and adrenaline spiking drama, this isn't that kind of book. The author did a great job in both titling it appropriately, as deciding what to include. I took many notes from the author, and have incorporated his leadership lessons into my personal and professional life. A must read for any junior leader, or senior leader who has lost his/her base.

4 of 5 people found this review helpful

DS

NH

13/12/15

Overall

Performance

Story

"among the best"

this book is among the best of the many spec ops books that have been published since 911 and is a window into the way the "War on Terror" should, and hopefully will, be fought. all those chicken hawks clamoring for "boots on the ground" should pause and consider the alternatives. small, entrepreneurial groups of highly trained spec ops soldiers are the better alternative.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Colby

11/09/15

Overall

Performance

Story

""IT'S NOT REALITY UNLESS IT'S SHARED!""

I'm going to sound cliche'...however it's my reality. This book changed my life! I'm a 30 year old man now (29 when I first read this.) I lost my father to suicide a few years back. I am married and own a window coverings business. I am a bit of a nomad...I lose myself to lack of wisdom and guiding principles. This book, has had a profound impact on my internal dialect...and a new motor to be an effective human being. This book nailed it...I go back and listen to the guiding principles about every other week in the last chapter. READ THIS BOOK. Thank you Mr.Blaber and please write another!

3 of 4 people found this review helpful

JLS

09/09/14

Overall

Performance

Story

"Great Book"

If you could sum up The Mission, the Men, and Me in three words, what would they be?

Interesting, Gripping, Insightful

What did you like best about this story?

I really enjoyed Pete's lessons learned during his time in the unit.

Any additional comments?

Great book, I have read it a few times and it was nice to listen to it as well. Good story, good insights into leadership, and interesting to learn about that part of our military history too.

3 of 4 people found this review helpful

Vincent J. Capone

Wilmington, DE United States

22/06/14

Overall

Performance

Story

"Great lesson for lif forged in the elite forces"

Would you listen to The Mission, the Men, and Me again? Why?

Definitely a multiple listen book as the lessons are embedded in story layers that can improve anyone's outlokk and life

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Matt C

23/06/17

Overall

Performance

Story

"Excellent"

Peter gives a real like account of how missions develop and how boots on the ground are the guys to listen to. His advice can be used in business. Great read.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Joe

19/06/17

Overall

Performance

Story

"Amazing! CEOs need to read this!"

First off I would like to thank you for keeping the ones we love as safe as you can and for your patriotism. I didn't know exactly what my brother did for his career but now I have a better understanding and for that I am eternally grateful. I hope you find a mission for the rest of your life that is as rewarding as what you did for our country! Thanks for sharing your journey and letting us feel like we were there with you. I will take your lessons with me for the rest of my life, thank you.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

RYAN KUCHARO

09/06/17

Overall

Performance

Story

"Good book with seemingly sudden ending"

My only issue is it just leaves you hanging. What happens to Pete after Operation Anaconda?

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Greg

17/04/17

Overall

Performance

Story

"Not just a book on military"

The book is good advice on organizations how to organize and communicate whether it's military business or any organization and tells the stories of different operations an excellent book

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

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